One day he quit his job. “It was the hinge moment: either you do it or you never do it,” she says. And she did. Soon after he became a father and almost at the same time he was part of the birth of his company. “I had almost two children being born at the same time,” he recalls with a laugh. Thus, David Ruiz and Julio Medina created the sports marketing agency in 2016 inyogo.
David worked for 16 years as a lawyer until becoming a partner in the firm where he worked. But his passion for the sport was still alive, the one that led him to be a player for the Peruvian hockey team and vice president of the sport’s federation. A scholarship to a Sports Management program in London was part of that change. “It was an eye opener to all the opportunities the sport offered and that they were already running in the world, and that in Peru it was not taken advantage of, ”he says.
In a few days, Inyogo will receive the award for Best Sponsorship Activation 2022 at the #SportbizAwards Latam Edition for the action “The one who sweated the most”, designed for Gatorade, which sought to reward the best player of each month from Alianza Lima and Sporting Cristal, giving equality to the women’s and men’s league. The award will be in Mexico.
In addition to opening operations in Ecuador, they have just launched the first part, of three, of the Sports Marketing via platform netzun. Aimed at athletes, brands and for those who want to enter the orbit of sport from marketing.
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-In 2016 when you created Inyogo, what was the panorama of sports marketing in Peru like?
It was very fledgling. In Peru, the image of athletes was not well exploited.
Were there similar companies?
There were a couple of companies that also did representation. But on the other side, the brands, they did not bet much, there were not so many campaigns. My partner and I saw that opportunity. We did a market study before starting the company. The most important question was: ‘Among the characters that we are going to introduce you, who do you think has the most credibility to suggest a purchase?’. And athletes were listed above singers, comedians, artists, etc. There was the opportunity that the brands were not seeing. And the Pan American Games hadn’t happened yet, and Peru wasn’t in the soccer World Cup qualifying zone either.
-It is said that private companies do not bet on sports other than soccer. But then we have seen Kimberly García (walking) or Alexandra Grande (in karate) shine. How is the break done?
You have to understand the client, what the client is looking for, what objectives he has. Based on that understanding, one can structure a proposal. Not all companies need to be with the soccer team and reach 33 million Peruvians. There are niche brands that aim at a sport that is perhaps more top-class or a sport more focused on women or para-athletes. We were the first agency to work with para-athletes, due to a conviction that we have of generating equal opportunities. We also advise companies helping them channel their marketing strategy through a sports route.
-Someone might think that marketing alters the essence of sports.
Marketing allows companies to connect with consumers; in this case, through a sports property, and that seeks to be linked to the passion that the fan of an athlete or a team has, and turn that fan into his client and, finally, a fan of his brand. The effect that sports marketing has had on the world has been to increase the budgets of those sports properties that have known how to work on marketing. Sports marketing facilitates the professionalization of sport, that the athlete can receive a remuneration, that he can live from this. Unfortunately, in Latin American countries it is very difficult for an athlete to make a living from sport if there are no sponsors behind it. Sometimes the State does not even have the capacity to send you to compete. I see sports marketing as the perfect partner.
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-Didn’t entering a complex sports environment like the Peruvian one make you doubt?
We knew the potential that sports properties have. Worldwide, sports marketing moves around 700 billion dollars.
-How to manage the strength of soccer versus the potential of other sports?
I have lived it in hockey. The purpose of Inyogo is precisely to contribute to the professionalization of the sports industry, which implies not only focusing on the sport that has generated the most resources in the past. We want the business to have a purpose, and that is why 85% of our portfolio of athletes are sports centers. In fact, we have been working with Kimberly García for five years and today she has values that could be compared to those of a soccer player. We seek to give everyone an opportunity and help them build their personal brand. We are not going to ask for support from brands; We show the value that athletes have and based on that value, we negotiate sponsorships. It has been a change of chip.
-It is a change of chip for the businessman, the athlete and the public, right?
As it is. And we must admit that the Pan American and Parapan American Games helped a lot. People met these guys and girls who break it in their sports. They were able to learn the stories behind them, not only sports can engage with a brand. We have a lot to thank the athletes who trusted us from the beginning.
SELF-FICHE:
– “I am David Ruiz Sessarego. I am 44 years old. I was born in Lima. I studied law, worked and then did my master’s degree at the Instituto de Empresas in Madrid. Then I did the Sports Management program in London in 2014, and that experience was incredible.”
– “In that program I had the Marketing manager of the Benetton team in Formula 1 as a teacher; Chelsea’s Marketing Manager, giving classes in a box at the team’s stadium (laughs). And that added to the empirical part in the federation (of hockey) ”.
– “The Sports Marketing course was taught by Julio Medina, my partner, and me. To follow the course, they go to the Netzun page, put on sports marketing and enter the course that is S/29.90, a super-democratic price, because we are looking for that: that knowledge reaches a lot of people ”.
